Desperate Measures
by Plesiosaur
Summary: In an Ooo torn apart by brutal war Bonnibel reaches out to the only person who can help, the only person she hoped she'd never have to beg for anything ever again. But as the Fire Army burns their way across the land and the body count rises will the aid of a reclusive Vampire Queen be enough to save the remaining Candy Kingdom citizens?
1. Chapter 1

**Surprise, a request fic! The ever so awesome MarhallLee1 requested an Ooo War AU fic. Imagine a world where Marceline didn't return to Ooo when Finn was eleven, imagine she'd just stayed away. And that is the only difference. But a small difference like that can change the whole timeline and so I present to you, THE DARKEST TIMELINE!** **So yes, this is a pretty dark story. There will be multiple character deaths and some of them rather brutal. Don't say I didn't warn you.**

 **As of right now I'm planning on this story being two or three chapters long but I make no promises that it won't grow longer, if the characters get away from me. So keep your eyes peeled for the next chapter and please don't forget to drop a review my way if possible, I adore your feedback guys.**

 **Content Warning: character death, serious injury, brutal descriptions of war crimes, bodies.**

* * *

The knock at the door was the loudest sound Marceline had heard in almost two decades and she wasn't completely sure if she should just ignore it and pretend to still be asleep. But whoever had crossed a desert to come find her probably had more than a social call in mind so with a sigh she heaved herself up and floated across to the door of the shack. And that was... well, that was when things got really weird.

There was a boy on her doorstep. Marceline blinked, confused and not completely certain she wasn't hallucinating. But he was warm and she could hear his delicious blood rushing just below the surface of his skin even if she tried to block it out; no, hallucinations didn't make her mouth water and fangs ache. The boy was wearing a thick white bear hat and little rivers of sweat ran down from his sunburnt brow across his earnest pink face since apparently he'd not taken it off under the fierce midday heat. He _stank_ , or more accurately his blood stank. He was human, edible, full of delicious sweet blo-

 _No._

It had been a long time since Marceline had seen another sentient being, much longer since she'd laid eyes on a human. And she'd be doing the world a disservice to eat him, letting herself down too in the process.

"What do you want?" she asked instead, already weary of his intrusion.

"Umm, Marceline the Vampire Queen? I've been sent to deliver a letter to you." he squeaked in reply. He held up a crumpled envelope in one sweaty hand and she snatched it from him, shaking out the note and scanning it with a furrowed brow. Eighteen years. How had a letter even reached her? She'd hidden herself so well from the world. But once the words of the message soaked into her brain Marceline stopped wondering; there was only one person who'd ever been able to track her down when she didn't want to be found.

 _Marceline,_

 _I know it's been a long time and I respect that you obviously still want your space. But I am in very deep trouble and I think you might be the only one who can help. Do you remember the Fire Kingdom? Well for reasons that would take too long to explain their army is camped outside my gates. Politics haven't gone my way recently and the short story is we're a few days away from being invaded. I need someone who can help, I won't put the details here but your unique talents would be useful._

 _I'm not asking for myself, I promised I would never beg you and I've already broken enough promises to last a lifetime. But on behalf of my people, all the innocents who will be slaughtered without protection, I'm asking for your help. One monarch to another, without any emotional attachments or regrets. There's a good chance I may already be dead by the time you receive this message. In that case please do what you can for the kingdom; you're the only one I'd trust with it. If you'll help then please hurry, I'll wait for you and pray for this siege to end._

 _Bonnibel_

Marceline read the message three times without even remembering to take a habitual breath before opening her mouth to talk. Her eyes rested on the nervous messenger fidgeting with the straps of his backpack when she did finally look up.

"You're a human." she announced after a long moment. It seemed like the only thing she could think of right then.

"Yeah. I'm Finn the Hero."

"You should be extinct. Huh. And this," she motioned to the letter with her free hand, "it's legit?"

"I wish it wasn't. She said to give you this in case you didn't believe her. I dunno, she said you'd understand?"

He held out a bundle of dark cloth and that was when it abruptly all became far too real for Marceline. That was the shirt she'd given Bonnie, the one the princess had apparently kept all those years. The one from the secret concert they'd snuck away to in disguise, the night they'd first kissed. Yeah, the letter was legit. All of Bonnie's fine words about not having an emotional attachment tumbled back through the vampire's mind as the soft black cloth slipped between her cold fingers. No emotional attachment. Perhaps she shouldn't be surprised, she had been away for a long time. And apparently the candy princess had managed to piss off the Fire Kingdom, as though they needed an excuse to act aggressively. How much had the world changed while she'd been away? Marceline suddenly wondered if perhaps she should have gone home a long time ago; it sounded like she'd missed some important developments.

"What game are you playing now, Bon? How badly must you have fucked it all up to come begging me for help?" Marcy murmured to herself. She hadn't mean to say it out loud but her habit of talking to herself just because she had nobody else to talk to was second nature by that point. The boy just stared at her, perplexed.

"So... should I tell her you're coming to help?" he prompted after a tense moment where the silence swirled around them.

"I'll tell her myself. I can get there more quickly than you can get back. Come on then, Finn the Human!"

His scream of pure terror as she transformed into a giant bat and swept into the air with him grasped in her claws was the most hilarious thing she'd heard in years and Marceline's sudden laughter boomed around them, echoing from the canyon walls of her desert retreat and mingling with his continued shrieks. Good thing she'd already had her bass strapped across her back, she thought as they swooped through the twilight.

"Put me down!" he squealed as she flew higher, taking her bearings from the stars above and shooting away towards the distant glow of the setting sun over the mountains.

"We're half a mile up already, can you fly on your own? Last time I checked humans couldn't, but whatever you say. You're _special_."

His screams redoubled as she let go and he tumbled through the night air towards the ground below. Marceline rolled her eyes as she watched him drop away, limbs flailing in terror. As though she was seriously going to let him hit the ground. This was the quality of heroes Bonnie was employing these days? No wonder she was up shit creek with her mouth hanging open. Even still, it wouldn't do to let the last human in Ooo end as nothing more than a wet stain on the bare rocks below, so with a weary sigh Marceline swooped down after him and caught him by his ankle a foot above the ground.

"Did you see a ghost on your way down or something? You're as white as a sheet." she commented as he clung tight around her neck for dear life. "I'm only asking cause I might get hungry along the way and it helps if your blood's closer to the surface. Do you know what vampires eat, kid?"

" _Fnrr_." the boy whimpered through clenched teeth.

"I guess that's a 'yes'? So you know that vampires drink human blood and you know I've been camped out here for decades alone without any live food and you still came to find me all on your own just because she told you to, huh? Wow. You're either very brave or very stupid. Ahh who am I kidding, we both know you're stupid."

It was a slow dawning but eventually as the hours and wind rushed past them it occurred to Marcy that most men would not willingly risk their lives to bring a begging letter to their girlfriend's former lover. Not if they knew the terms of their break up, not if the princess had ever confided in him how deeply in love they'd been and the dizzying heights of sexual deviance they'd reached in their experimentation together. No, Finn clearly had only the vaguest idea about the sort of deliciously dirty behaviour his pretty little cupcake had gotten up to with the big bad vampire or else he'd probably be trying to stake her in a jealous rage.

"So, about your princess. Tell me about how she's doing. Still trying to unlock the secrets of the universe with science? Still convinced she's the only person who knows how to work their brain? Ooh, does she still wear those little silky nightdresses in bed?" Marcy asked after a few hours of awkwardly silent flight.

"The princess' bedroom is her own private business, I'm not telling you squat." he sulked in reply. Marceline shrugged, she'd find out soon enough. The boy shivered in the cool night air and he stank of resentment and lingering fear. He was brave at least, clearly terrified but still there despite all of her talk of eating him. She breathed his scent deeply and relished every note of it; it had been too long since Marcy had had anyone to properly scare. There were a few night flying bats around her shack who also fed on the dark red cactus fruits of the deep desert but they were pretty used to her by now, she could barely get a decent squeak out of them any more. It was gratifying to know she could still chill the blood in mortal veins, just for the fun of it.

Eventually the desert beneath them gave way to scrub and then grass and trees, familiar terrain that stirred memories of hurtling through the velvety night air with a much more welcome companion in her arms. All the residual humour from scaring the human boy drained from Marceline's body as she flew; there was the edge of the grassland plain where she'd taken Bonnie star gazing, there was the waterfall with caves hidden behind that they'd explored together. The whole landscape hummed with ancient memories and regrets and all the suffocating feelings she'd fled to escape eighteen years before. She should have stayed, Marceline realised. But running had been easier. It was all she'd ever known. She'd ran when the bombs fell and that had lead her to Simon, she'd ran when he went crazy and then she'd ran again when her father had tried to force her to be his puppet. Running got results, running meant she'd survived to run another day. So why was she coming back now for no more than a vague letter? The answer welled up from her heart before she could crush it back down. Because Bonnie had asked. Because Bonnie still thought of her, after all those years. Because she just didn't know what was good for her or how to quit, apparently.

The sharp stink of old burning hit Marceline's sensitive nose before the ashes were even visible by the moonlight. Up ahead like a necrotic wound on the landscape there was a deep scar of scorched, blackened earth.

"Finn, what am I seeing here? This was Hotdog Princess' place. What happened?" Marcy asked quietly, coming to a hover above the charred remains and gazing down with disbelieving horror growing heavy in her chest.

"She was our ally. She refused to tell the Flame Queen where I was hiding. So they- they _barbecued_ her and every one of her subjects they could catch. We've got the refugees in the palace. It was awful." he whispered. She heard him swallow and it must be to hold back the vomit that that memory caused. If Marceline could vomit from disgust and horror she would, too.

"They burned her alive for being your ally." she repeated slowly, letting the terrible full weight of horror that caused sink into her mind.

"I can hear her screams when I try to sleep. I never meant for it to be this way." Finn replied softly. He sniffed, then sniffed again, and Marceline wrapped him tighter into her arms and drifted away from the spot because it was all she could do for him. Something had gone very badly wrong in the years since she'd left Ooo.

"Tell me about this Flame Queen." she said instead, hoping to distract him.

"Ph-phoebe. She was my girlfriend, and she went crazy. We had a fight, I don't even know what I did that was so wrong. And now she's hurting anyone who helps me, so I went to stay with Princess Bubblegum. She's always been so kind to me. I don't understand why any of this is happening." Finn admitted in a quiet voice.

"Well I dunno either but if anyone can tell us it's Bonnie. Come on, kid. We've got to see the princess and find out what this is all about."

...

Marceline had forgotten that the letter had warned about the Fire Army being encamped outside the Candy Kingdom. She remembered quickly enough as they approached the battlements and she was forced to swerve to one side to narrowly avoid being incinerated by a fireball that came tearing through the air towards them from the ground.

"What the stuff? Why are they even watching the skies?" she yelled to Finn over the savage shriek of flames splitting the night air all all around them.

"The princess was bringing in supplies by airship! We had to stop because we lost too many people, they shot them right out of the skies. They're starving in there, we had to do something. But it just made it worse. I barely got out, The Morrow got hit on our way over and he crash landed at the edge of the grasslands. I hope he's ok." Finn added worriedly.

There was a slim, tall and far too familiar figure staring up at them as Marcy hurtled down toward the battlements and finally escaped the direct line of fire. She landed in a clumsy rush and Finn tumbled to his knees at her feet when she let him go. Marcy braced herself but the princess didn't even spare her a glance.

"Finn! Oh thank Grod you're ok, I was so scared!" Bonnie exclaimed, rushing forward to him and flinging her arms around his neck as he struggled upright.

"Is everything ok here? Are you ok?" he asked breathlessly.

"I'm fine, I was just so worried. I saw them catch Morrow's tail feathers and I didn't know if they'd gotten you too, are you ok?"

She scanned his face worriedly, looking for any sign of injury. Finn shuffled his feet and avoided her eyes. Marceline had frozen in place the moment she heard the other woman's voice and through the numbness that cloaked her she wondered why Finn was being bashful around his own girlfriend, it made no sense. Unless they weren't together?

"Yeah, yeah we crashed but I think he's alright, he got away into the forest. I had to walk." the boy mumbled, cheeks glowing with embarrassment. A deep boom from the base of the wall shook the ground and voices yelled commands further along the battlements; Marceline decided she had much more immediate concerns than who Bonnie was or wasn't dating no matter how badly it twisted up her heart.

"Bon, what's happening here?" she asked instead, stepping forward and drawing the princess' attention reluctantly to her face for a moment. She looked worn, Marceline decided. Worn and pale and under too much pressure, like a sharp breeze could snap her in two. Bonnie motioned for them both to follow her back inside the palace and turned away, striding back across the flagstones and avoiding her ex lover's piercing gaze.

"They're no closer to breaking through than they have been in weeks, not so long as our water cannons hold out. But they keep trying. The first thing they did was burn up all the farmland outside of the walls and the whole kingdom is starving. We've been besieged for three months. I've managed so far by feeding my people the low-grade sugar we used to construct the buildings but it's not going to last much longer and it doesn't have a lot of nutritional value. Not enough to feed a whole kingdom, or as many as we have left. We need to do something, I'm sorry to drag you here but I was out of options. I-"

"Uncle Finn! You're back!"

Bonnie was interrupted by a creature that Marceline decided after a second's thought was probably at least half Rainicorn if her rainbow streaked fur was anything to go by. The minute they'd stepped through the door she'd rushed forward and embraced Finn warmly. She was flanked by four more part-Rainicorns and a full Rainicorn woman who looked to be their mother. All of them wore puffy, red eyes swollen from hours of crying and black mourning clothes.

"You ok, Viola? Looking after your Mom?" Finn asked quietly. The part-Rainicorn nodded and her paw hovered around Finn's hat, though she didn't touch it. Marcy narrowed her eyes slightly and wondered what that was all about but she didn't have long to think about it because next second Viola had turned to gaze curiously at her instead.

"Who did you bring?" she asked Finn in confusion. "She's just a skinny girl, is this the great warrior you went to find?"

"This is Marceline the Vampire Queen. She's gonna win the war for us." Finn replied softly.

"Is that true? Are you gonna avenge our Dad?" spoke up a round, male part-Rainicorn from the corner.

"I... You'll need to fill me in on the situation. I've been away for a while." Marcy replied uncomfortably.

"Dad got us here just as they were attacking the surrounding land, they burned Mom's house down. And he sacrificed himself to make sure we were safe, he tried to stretch over their fire but the smoke suffocated him. He couldn't Phase through the walls like we can. But we wouldn't have made it without him. Dad was a hero." Viola said quietly. The Rainicorn woman who was probably the mother of the others let out a quiet sob and was comforted in low Korean by one of her other children as the building shook with another distant impact.

"Come down to the War Room, we'll fill you in on what tactics we have left." Bonnie sighed wearily. She slumped to the doorway and they all trooped out behind her, down through what had once been a dazzling palace.

Everywhere Marceline looked there were teeth marks in the walls, or whole chunks of sugar-plaster had been ripped away. The delicate potted plants and ornaments had been replaced by barrels of what she assumed were supplies. Even the rugs were gone, the slap of feet on the tiles rang out and alerted the inhabitants of the rooms they walked past that someone was coming. Eyes peered fearfully around doors at them as they passed by, disappearing back into the shadows if they caught anyone looking too directly at them. Marcy remembered that Finn had mentioned the Hotdog refugees, how many others had fled to the Candy Kingdom in hopes that Bonnie would be able to protect them?

Finally they arrived at a doorway flanked by two world-weary Banana Guards. They saluted smartly to the princess and stood aside, uncrossing their spears to allow access. The door opened and Marceline sucked in a breath. There was another figure from ancient history sitting by the window, staring out at the night sky. He turned when the door opened and a sad smile briefly lit his features beneath his thick, snowy beard.

"Oh, Princess, you're back. Did you hear any news about my poor precious Gunther?"

...

In the end there wasn't much to tell. It was pretty much exactly how Bonnie had described it; one day Finn had arrived out of nowhere claiming sanctuary because his girlfriend had attacked him. Next they heard that anyone who'd ever aided him or allied with him was being targeted, that the Fire Army was burning their way across all the lands killing indiscriminately. And that's when Gunther had disappeared. Simon had received a letter telling him that if he ever wanted to see his penguin alive again then he'd remain neutral and not lift a finger against them, allow them full access to his own kingdom and tell nobody what had happened. For better or for worse he'd decided to come to Bonnie instead and now the Ice Kingdom was no more than a steaming puddle. Perhaps some of the yetis and snowfolk had escaped into the uninhabited mountains that had bordered Simon's lair, he hadn't been back to check. But the Flame Queen had decided to send a message; along with the usual bombardment of stones and explosives they'd rained on the palace the next morning had revealed the charred bodies of a handful of dead penguins littering the courtyard. It appeared that none of them were Gunther though, and his fate remained unknown.

"Is there anyone who hasn't been scarred by this war?" Marcy growled, frustrated.

"Show her, Finn." Bonnie commanded.

The boy stood, reluctantly, and reached for his hat. Most everyone else glanced away but Marceline stared hard at him, wondering what the hell was going on. At first she didn't see what difference it made. Even with his hat off he was just a skinny boy with a mop of filthy blonde hair falling into his eyes. Then he turned around so she could see the back of his head and Marcy bit back a shocked swear.

From halfway around his scalp, all the way to the base of his neck, Finn's hair had been burned away and the skin beneath was blistered and warped from the heat. The twisted scarring left behind was still raw and livid red, it must be constant agony for him.

"She did this to you?" Marceline whispered in horror.

"I ran away and she shot a fireball after me. It caught me in the back of the head." he replied softly. "And there are other scars, under my shirt and stuff. Those ones are the shape of her hands."

"But, why?"

"Because she's Evil. We always knew the Flame Royalty were a little unhinged but this is above and beyond. When the Flame Queen was born there was a prophesy stating that she'd be more powerful than her father. So he abandoned her in the grasslands and left her to die. I found her and returned her to him, he locked her in a lamp so she couldn't cause more destruction. And she stayed there for fifteen years. Three years ago she was released and for a while it seemed like Finn was a good influence on her. I guess the power got to her. And she won't stop until she kills Finn and conquers the whole of Ooo. Those are her stated goals." Bonnie sighed, running a hand through her gummy pink hair. "I should have left her to die that day when she was a baby. But I had a soft heart then, I took pity on her. And look where that pity's gotten me."

"You couldn't have known, Bon. You're a lot of things but psychic isn't one of-"

Marceline broke off with a sudden hiss of pain and threw herself to the floor, rolling instinctively onto her back to smother the flames that had inexplicably broken out across her shoulders. Finn recoiled violently from the smell of smoke and Bonnie leapt to her feet, rushing across to the window to tug the curtains closed. The sun had peeked over the horizon while they'd been talking and nobody had noticed.

"Marcy, I'm so sorry. Are you ok?" the princess asked wearily.

"Yeah, just got a shock. Look, there's nothing else we can do right now and I'm beat. Is there someplace I can crash out for a few hours?"

"Come on, I've got a room where the light won't find you. Thick walls and it's far enough away from the battlements that you won't need to worry about the walls coming tumbling down from a direct hit, at least for now. And if they do I'll be right beside you."

There didn't seem to be a lot else Marceline could do than follow Bonnie down the hall and up the spiral staircase into her tower. She paused at the threshold of the princess' bedroom though, causing the other woman to huff in annoyance and grab her wrist. Marceline had almost forgotten how bewitchingly smooth Bonnie's touch was, how warm and soft.

"Come on, I'm not going to eat you." the princess sighed as she tugged the reluctant vampire forwards.

"No offence Bon, but unless you changed the structural integrity of your bedroom then I'm pretty sure you still have windows." Marcy muttered awkwardly.

"That's why I'm putting you in the closet." Bonnie replied smartly.

"In the closet." Marcy repeated in a deadpan, disbelieving voice.

"Look. I asked you here because I need a bodyguard and advisor, someone who has some experience of fighting this sort of conflict. I know you've been involved in wars in the past, you told me so yourself once upon a time. So I need you close by in case they burn through the walls and murder me in my bed, do you understand? This isn't a game any more, Marceline. People have died. And the closet is the only place in the room where you'll be right by my side and still protected from any stray daylight. So. In you get, unless you want to go back to sulking in the desert and leave them to kill me?"

"I-"

Marceline didn't get the words out before the closet was thrown open and she was stuffed inside. With the door closed it was at least day proof, and not a moment too soon. Any longer and the direct sunlight would have reached that side of the building, putting her at risk if the curtains so much as shifted a tiny bit. It had never really been a problem before but this time she didn't have the luxury of pulling the princess' blankets over her head and snuggling closer to her lover as the morning wore on.

Even despite the lack of light a vampire's eyes could see perfectly in total darkness. It wasn't long before Marcy blinked and realised what she'd been staring unfocusedly at for a few minutes. So Bonnie had kept the photo of them too, and tacked it to the inside of her closet where she must see it every morning when she dressed. Oh. Despite her exhaustion it took a long time for Marceline to fall asleep; the aching weight of regret and unspoken words dammed up behind her tongue kept her awake long after the breathing from the bed outside her closet door had deepened and evened out in slumber.


	2. Chapter 2

**Here we are at chapter two, and I'd like to address a couple of points raised by an anon. Normally I'd do this via PM but since, anon, I can't. So y'all get the benefit of reading it too. Firstly, if you don't read the author notes, you're gonna be a little lost. I don't like to waste too much time dumping a whole pile of info about the when and where into the first couple of paragraphs as a general rule. I'm also very aware that the Fire Kingdom War scenario is overplayed, which is 100% of the reason why I chose it. I like to explore different tropes, see if I can find a new spin on an old concept. As to what did or didn't happen between Finn and Phoebe, that was left deliberately ambiguous. It's one of those things I try to do where I don't reveal everything all in one go. Jake is dead because plot, I did mention it was the darkest timeline? (That was a Community reference btw if you didn't catch it). The whole point of having Hotdog Princess barbecued alive is because she's a _hotdog_ , I was trying to introduce a little dark humour. Plus it's an indication of how far the Fire Kingdom are willing to go to get to their targets. Obviously there's no reason that Finn would know about Marcy and Simon's previous acquaintance but I'm fairly certain Bonnie already knew, from way back. As ever, I really appreciate you taking the time to review and I hope that cleared up some things for you.**

 **Anyway, onwards and upwards, right? Brace yourself for chapter two.**

 **Content Warning: off screen character death, tension, implied sexytimes.**

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It seemed like she'd only just slid into sleep when rough hands shook her awake and Marceline was snarling furiously before she'd even opened her eyes.

"Don't make me stake you, Marceline. Behave yourself." a very unwelcome voice admonished her.

"Pep Butt. Who the hell let you stay alive?" she replied snarkily, too tired to pretend to like the annoying little butler.

"The same person who apparently just couldn't see a way through this without contacting _you_ , the last person in existence I want near her." he replied with a scowl.

"Peps, come on. We don't have time for you two bickering." Bonnie sighed. She'd slept in her clothes and was sitting up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "There's a messenger outside from the Flame Queen. I'm not going alone."

"I'll need something to keep the light off me." Marcy reminded the princess. Peppermint Butler sighed and reached around her into the back of the closet.

"I already thought of that. Here."

He handed her an umbrella. A frilly, pink umbrella decorated with dancing cupcakes. Any other time Marceline would have rather been staked with a blunt piece of wood than be seen with something that aggressively feminine. But she just sighed and opened it, shrinking down a little to hide more of herself under its shade.

Half of the windows in the throne room were boarded up anyway so it was an easy enough thing to avoid floating through the patches of sunlight that still streamed in at odd intervals along the floor. Bonnie took her throne looking just as worn and tired as she had when they'd finally retired to bed. Marceline floated awkwardly to her right hand side, avoiding the patch of weak sun that lit the left of the throne. Her axe was strapped across her back, still strung as a bass guitar but more than sharp enough to defend the princess with if she needed it; Marcy hadn't even considered walking away now that she knew more about the situation. The doors opened and Peppermint Butler waddled into view, trailed by what the vampire assumed were the Flame Kingdom messengers. She'd been expecting them to be flamefolk, but it appeared instead to be the familiar rotund outline of Cinnamon Bun and a floating purple clump with a sarcastic sneer plastered across her face. She was from Lumpy Space, there was no doubt about it. What she and Cinnamon Bun who had once been one of Bonnie's closest allies were doing as messengers for the Flame Queen was a mystery to Marceline.

"You traitor, CB. How dare you show you face here." Bonnie growled to the newcomers.

"By all means, Princess. You should lecture me about morality, about loyalty and doing the right thing. After all, you're the expert aren't you? Imprisoning babies because they're inconvenient, experimenting on your subjects without their knowledge or consent; you're a real shining star of goodness." Cinnamon Bun replied in a surprisingly smooth, polished voice. He didn't seem at all flustered or confused. Marcy stared harder and he caught her gaze on his face. "Oh and you've brought your favourite plaything back as well, did you magically find time for her now that half of your kingdom is dead?"

"You leave her out of this! How can you come back here, when I expressly banished you? I should have you put in the dungeon-"

"And risk even more all-out war for imprisoning The Empress' personal messenger? Sure. Why stop there, why not march me out to the courtyard and execute me in front of the crowd for high treason? After all, I used my brain and made my own choices and that goes against the law of this kingdom, doesn't it? We were nothing more than _pets_ , to crawl at your feet in thoughtless worship-"

"Can it, CB. We've gotta deliver this message or whatever. _As if_ I'd even be seen dead hanging around _here_." the lumpy girl interrupted with an eye roll. "Yo Peebles, listen up. We've got an official message and like, I'm not reading it out twice. Ahem. Right, uh, by order of her Imperial Majesty Empress Phoebe of New Ooo, the Candy Kingdom and all its citizens have a twenty four hour notice period of annexation to the Empire. You, Princess Bubblegum, will abdicate your crown, sign over all official power and state secrets to The Empress and leave for exile or face execution. You will also hand over the war criminal Finn The Human to answer his crimes and face his execution with the dignity that should be afforded the extinction of the last of his species, rather than hiding like a rat in a hole. Any Candy Kingdom citizens or refugees currently residing within the palace are offered this twenty four hour period as amnesty to renounce their citizenship and resettle in the imperial territory of New Ooo. This does not extend to any member of Candy royalty, any humans or named war criminals. See appendix one for a full list of exemptions. That means you, Peps." she added to the indignant little butler.

"You better turn around and get out of here right now, LSP!" he replied, squeaky with rage. She shrugged and tossed the official declaration at him before turning and dragging Cinnamon Bun by the shoulder.

"Whatever. You harbour criminal scum, see what happens to your precious kingdom. Finn's a dirtbag and you all know it. For Grod's sake, he _blinded_ her. He deserves everything he gets."

They swept out of the throne room to a shocked silence that very soon gave way to hurried whispering. Bonnie stood, took a breath and nodded to the declaration on the floor.

"You all heard them. You have twenty four hours. If you want to get out then go, I won't judge you for it. But anyone who does stay will be expected to help man the defences and you know that if we fail you'll all face death along with me. Because as long as there is blood in my veins I will fight for you, for our kingdom. So there's a decision you need to make, safety or loyalty. I won't judge you for whatever you choose." she announced in a voice loud enough that the whisperers around the doors at the far end of the room could hear her.

There was a quiet scurrying like a number of people trying to hurry away to their families and friends as quickly as possible. Bonnie nodded to herself sadly, she wasn't under any illusions about how many would stay to fight. She turned to Marceline, who'd stayed silent so far, and motioned for the other woman to follow.

"Come on, there's something you need to see. It's time you met my brother."

...

"Neddy. You named that _thing_... Neddy."

"Shh, not too loud. I don't want him any more upset than he already is."

Once upon a time a giant candy dragon hidden in the palace's attic might have surprised Marceline. That was before she returned to discover that the whole of Ooo was now under control of the Fire Kingdom, that Bonnie was in more danger than she'd ever been and that apparently her chosen hero had somehow blinded a young princess who was now taking it out on the whole world. Compared to all that shit Neddy really wasn't too shocking.

"He's my brother. We both fell from the Mother Gum at the same time, I suppose you could say he's my twin. He's just... different." Bonnie sighed.

"Yeah. Different in a 'pissing the entire kingdom's water supply' way. Remind me never to shower here ever again." Marceline replied with a shudder.

"As if I'd pipe it into my bathroom if it wasn't sterile." Bonnie retorted with an eye roll. "Look, the thing is that Neddy's getting too exhausted. He's supplying the water cannons, he's been producing secretion fluid constantly for weeks and he's just not keeping up with the pace to demand. Pretty soon he's going to give up and when he does-"

"We're all going up in smoke. Yeah. Any idea how long he's gonna hold on?"

"None at all. Probably not much longer before he enters hibernation mode, I think. But it won't matter anyway in another twenty four hours. We have until noon tomorrow and then either way, we'll all pay for Finn's crimes."

"Listen, Bon, what did that Lumpy girl mean about Finn blinding the Flame Queen? What did he doto her?" Marceline asked quietly.

It was the same detail she'd been coming back to time and time again. How could a human boy have blinded a creature of fire? He'd said that she was his girlfriend, so they must have been close until their argument. She must have had some attractive qualities once upon a time. And Marceline wanted to know more about the last human, what he was like as a person that so many people would have been on his side, at least at first. But from what she could gather the kingdoms had fallen one by one, or else openly allied with the Fire Kingdom once it was obvious which way the tide was turning. Why? What had made them abandon this boy who so many had called their hero? It seemed like he'd been famous for years, there hadn't been a corner of the known world where his name wasn't said in awed respect. So what had changed?

"I was wondering about that myself. Finn never said that Flame Queen had been hurt, just that they'd argued and she attacked him, then all of this happened. We should go find him, ask him more about it. I get the feeling like there's a lot Finn hasn't told me and I don't like it." Bonnie sighed.

She cast a reluctant glance at her brother, a huge pale lump of flesh sucking a tree root and labouring to breathe as more and more fluid seeped away from him in a long trickle. Neddy was exhausted, it was plain to see. But from what she gathered he understood the danger the kingdom was in and he wanted to help. She pressed her hand briefly against the flickering glow in her chest, the mental connection she always carried with her brother that nobody else knew about, and felt how heavy and strained his heartbeat was these days. Neddy would be with her to the end, she knew. Perhaps he'd be the only one. And it felt like more and more it _would_ be her end, his too. Maybe a small part of her even welcomed it, maybe after everything that had happened Bonnie didn't want to keep going. Whatever her personal feelings she had to put her kingdom first, she always had. So for the sake of her subjects, the ones still alive, she kept going. And now for Marceline too. It hadn't been an easy decision to reach out to her ex-lover but Bonnie was glad she'd swallowed her pride and done it. At least if this was going to be her end she could tie up as many loose ends as possible first. Bonnie turned back to the stairs leading down into the palace and motioned the other woman to follow. They had a human to question.

It was a strange feeling of déjà vu to walk through the palace with a vampire bobbing along silently at her side. If Marceline had reached out and taken Bonnie's hand then she would have held tight, just like old times. It probably would have taken her a moment to work out why it felt strange now, after all those years spent apart. But the grey skinned woman's hands were firmly in her pockets and she was avoiding the princess' gaze. Instead she seemed lost in her own thoughts, like she was turning something over and over in her head, trying to figure out what angle to approach it from. Bonnie didn't have long to wonder about it though, soon enough they had reached the room Finn had been using. She knocked on the door and after a moment a low voice gruffly asked them to enter.

The room was disgusting. It smelled like the unmistakable funk of boy sweat and misery. The curtains were drawn which was as much a relief to Marceline as it was a worry and there were bits of smashed up furniture and wrecked objects on the floor like Finn had had more than one temper tantrum in the months he'd lived there. He was lying on his side on the bed, holding a photo of himself with his arm slung around the shoulder of a grinning yellow dog with 'Best Buds!' scrawled in uneven handwriting across the top. There were fresh tear tracks on the boy's cheeks that he hurriedly brushed away as they entered.

"Hullo, Prubs. Vamp chick." he mumbled, avoiding their eyes.

"Do you feel up to answering some questions?" Bonnie asked gently sitting next to him and taking his hand. He pulled it back again and turned his head away.

"No. I don't wanna do anything or talk to anyone. My best buddy is _dead_ because of that crazy chick and nobody's doing anything about it. Tons of people have died because Phoebe's gone mental. Do you know what she did to Tree Trunks? Do you want to know? No, you don't, because you don't need those nightmares or that blood on your hands. I saw it, Princess. I tried to stop it and I couldn't. And you know the worst thing? I still love her. I'd still forgive her, if she came and apologised. She _killed Jake_ and I'd take her back. What's wrong with me, why am I so messed up?"

"Love fucks you up, kid." Marcy replied before she'd even really thought about it. "When you love someone you'd do some crazy shit for them even though you know they're kinda a selfish butt sometimes. And you're here now and not out there begging her to forgive whatever you did, so you're trying to act sensibly around your love crazies, yeah? Sometimes the hardest thing is the best thing and walking away from someone you're so crazy about for your own sake is the only thing you can do to save yourself. So yeah, I feel you on this. What happened? Sounds like you had a pretty huge bust up."

"I- she said she'd do it, she said she didn't mind. And then- when I... No, she just went crazy, ok? She's crazy, women are crazy. She was always evil and I just didn't see it." Finn muttered, avoiding their eyes.

Marceline lost the small amount of patience she'd ever had; he'd been so close to letting the truth slip and she could smell his bullshit from a mile away. He might be able to fool Bonnie but she wasn't going to chalk up the Flame Queen's behaviour to simply being 'evil', there was too obviously something else that she wasn't being told. And the whole of Ooo was at war because of it, half the Candy Kingdom had gone to their graves. They didn't have time to indulge a sulking boy's temper and pride.

"Listen here you little shit, people are dead because of whatever you did. And that 'crazy chick'? Her messengers said you _blinded_ her. I want to know what the fuck you did, why half the population of Ooo got burned to ash and I'm not in the mood to fucking wait. I want some answers, now!"

"MARCY, NO! LET HIM GO!"

Beyond her haze of flaring rage Marceline registered that Bonnie was screaming at her and desperately trying to uncurl her fingers from where she'd wrapped them around Finn's throat and lifted him off the ground. She dropped him, horrified, and he collapsed in a gasping heap with his face returning to a normal colour.

"You better come up with some answers, boy. Before I really lose it." she snarled, whirling away from him. She was almost out of the door when Finn found his voice again.

"You bitches are all crazy, what the fuck is wrong with your gender?" he rasped. Only Bonnie's hand on her shoulder propelling her out of the door stopped Marceline from turning and snapping his weak, mortal neck like a straw. She couldn't remember the last time she'd lost herself to rage so completely.

"Go. Calm down, cool off, do whatever it is you do to get your balance back. I'll talk to him. But I don't want to see your face again until you're ready to stop choking people, you understand? I can't afford for you to lose it again." Bonnie told her with a harsh shove along the corridor. Marcy floated away, fists clenched and hot fury still coursing through her. It would take hours before she was calm enough to be around anyone else, she knew.

…

Hours came and went and the sun set. Marceline left her closet for the silence of the roof and strummed out as many rhythms as she knew on her bass until her fingers ached and her mind finally felt calm again. She was still angrier with Finn than she knew how to express but since he was under Bonnie's protection and she was a guest in the palace there wasn't a lot she could do about it. Besides by her reckoning they had about eighteen hours until the Flame Queen herself would be leading the charge to end the seige. Marceline had a plan.

She was strapping her bass back across her back and thinking of heading back inside when a movement in the corner of her eye had her whipping around. It was Simon, dressed all in black and flying carefully out of the trapdoor behind her.

"Sneaking out?" she asked in what she hoped was a casual tone. He jumped in midair and came in to land with a furtive glance around.

"Didn't see anyone out here, you're the princess' new body guard, right?" he asked awkwardly. It was all kinds of heartbreaking to hear the man she'd regarded as more of a parent than her own father sound unsure about who she was or why she was there. Marceline sighed.

"I'm not stupid, Simon. I know why you're out here. You're leaving us before the fight, yeah?"

"I... uhh... Look, nobody's done a damn thing to find my Gunther. And if I stay by this time tomorrow we might all be dead. I might be dead. I've got to find him, I've got to go. You understand that right, vampire lady? Wasn't there ever anyone you owed it to to come back alive?"

She swallowed down the lump that wanted to rise in her throat; there just wasn't time to explain. Once it was all over she'd go find him, go explain for the thousandth time who she was and why he still meant the world to her even if he wouldn't ever remember her. Instead she nodded.

"Yeah, there was. Someone who raised me, someone who kept me safe when I was just a kid. And more than anything I just want him to be safe. I want everyone I care about to be safe and away from this awful war. So, if you've gotta go for Gunther then go, and I hope you find him. Get away from here, Simon. Get as far away as you can. And when it's all done I'll come find you. I promise."

"I know an island, she'll put us up for a while. Me and Gunts will be just fine, don't worry. I'd like to know how it all turns out though, don't forget me." he replied with a small smile twitching his beard.

She hugged him tight, closing her eyes and letting all of the words she couldn't say wrap around her like a mental cloak. Simon would be safe no matter what, she hoped. He'd get away. Hadn't Simon always survived? At least she could be sure he'd get away, he always did.

"Be safe." Marcy whispered as she let him go and he rose back into the air, clearly confused but not unhappy at the hug. Simon obviously had plenty of experience getting past the fireballs around the outer walls; he shot upwards until he was cloaked in the clouds and flew off into the night air higher than anyone could hope to see him. And then he was gone, swallowed up in the darkness. Marcy had a feeling deep in her bones like that was the last time she would ever see the man who raised her. And she made a decision, maybe the most important decision of her life and maybe completely irrelevant to whether they lived or died. She headed back inside and straight to the princess' bedroom. A swift knock on the door and a muffled order to enter later and she was face to face with her ex, the woman she'd fled from eighteen years earlier. Time to make some things right.

"Hey, I wondered how long you'd need to get over your tantrum earlier. You'll be thrilled to hear Finn won't say another word to anyone, you really scared him. Marcy, you can't just go around choking people who-"

"Bon, shut up. Ok? Just, shut up. I've got something to say. I have loved you for almost my entire life. I've loved you since before I knew you existed. I ran away because we broke up, because I couldn't deal with being in this perfect world you built for yourself and not be a part of your life. And I came back because your perfect world is in danger. Because you are the only thing that made this whole place stable and civilised after the mushroom war, because I believe in you and because dammit, Bonnie, I still love you even after all these years. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ran away, I'm sorry I wasn't here to stop this war happening. I'm sorry I didn't give you the time you needed to be who you are, sorry I demanded more from you than you could give and forced you to break up with me. Sorry that-"

"Stop talking now." Bonnie commanded, and Marcy stopped talking. She was nothing if not obedient.

The princess was gazing steadily at her with the same expression on her perfect face that she had when she was confronted by a new and interesting problem. Marceline had always hated when Bonnie tried to figure her out, she didn't want to just be another puzzle to find a solution to. She waited and tried not to fidget under the too direct gaze.

"This is because we might be dead tomorrow, isn't it?" Bonnie finally asked.

"Yes but-"

"Just a 'yes' was all I was looking for. But you mean it? You're sorry you left for eighteen years?"

"Yes. And-"

"And you still have feelings for me?"

"Forever."

The princess nodded like that was all she'd needed to know.

"We might be dead tomorrow. Come here and kiss me."

"Anything my lady commands."

The night was silent outside the window, the moon slid through the sky and within the safe walls of their palace two women desperately made the most of what they both knew deep down could be their last chance to find a little happiness together. Neither wanted to let go, give up that skin to skin connection or the closeness they'd both missed. Long after midnight had come and gone, long after their frantic movements had stilled to sated stroking and murmured nothings Marcy let out a sigh and rested her head back onto the pillow next to her lover. She pulled Bonnie close and took a moment to simply allow herself to enjoy the feeling of a warm, real woman lying trustingly and breathtakingly naked in her arms.

"You think once this is all done you and me could try the whole girlfriends thing again?" she mumbled.

"I think I'd like that a lot. And I promise to make more time for you, I promise I won't forget about you." the princess sighed. She slid as close as physically possible and placed a soft, lingering kiss onto cool ashen lips. "I just want all of this to be over, so we can rebuild. Together."

"I had a plan about that, actually. If you'll let me, I want to talk to the Flame Queen. I think I might have some idea about what she went through, why she's acting like this. Everyone expects her to be evil, right? And it sounds like Finn did something to her. I think she's given up trying to prove that she's not what everyone expects her to. And I get that, I get how a stupid boy could fuck her up. Remember Ash?"

"Of course. I thought perhaps you were just doing that to make me jealous."

"I don't even know. I liked him? But I was never in love with him. I've never been in love with anyone who wasn't you."

"When all this is finished we're gonna have a really long conversation about us and where we're going. And I'm looking forward to that, I want this to work. We should sleep though, get some rest before you face down the Flame Queen tomorrow. I love you, Marcy."

"I love you too."

The vampire spent a long time just watching Bonnie sleep, watching her eyes flutter as she dreamed and the curve of her lips with each breath. It was unthinkable that in just a few hours those eyes could be staring into nothingness and those lips stilled forever. She would do everything she could to stop that from happening, and in the event that she couldn't reach out to an injured teenage monarch she would have her axe; she was ready to give her life in defence of her lover if that was what it came down to. It was about so much more than Finn and whatever he'd done now.


	3. Chapter 3

**It was hard to write this final chapter and that along with some personal stuff has meant it got horribly delayed. I'm so, so effing sorry guys. But here it is, all ready to post, eventually.**

 **The darkest timeline is about to get _hella dark_ , guys. Don't say I didn't warn you. The genre tags for this story are tragedy for a reason. But, on we go, brace yourselves.**

 **Content Warning: character death, torture, graphic injury, implied suicide, historical sexual assault, shameless abuse of Shakespeare.**

* * *

It was no surprise to Peppermint Butler when he opened the doors of his mistress' bedroom to bring her breakfast the next morning and he found her unabashedly nude and deeply asleep in the arms of an equally naked vampire. Marceline of course had woken the second the door handle moved and she evidently took great delight in grinning smugly at him over the princess' shoulder. Just because he wasn't surprised didn't mean he was happy about it though. Still, he wasn't going to make a fuss. They had three and a half hours until the noon deadline and it broth her happiness to if spend what could be her last night on the earth indulging in carnal pleasures with her undead beau then he was not going to complain. Instead the small candy butler simply placed the breakfast tray on her night stand and cleared his throat significantly.

"Your Highness, you need to wake up." he finally sighed when that failed to elicit any kind of response.

"Mm, huh?"

"Babe, wake up. P-Butt brought you food and today we're gonna crush this stupid conquest the Flame Queen is set on. Gotta get you properly fed and all before you watch me win a war for you."

Bonnie finally opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was Marceline smiling at her with sleep wild hair framing her face and a sort of languid contentment in her eyes that the candy princess hadn't seen in a very long time. It was almost too good to be true and for a moment before her brain had full warmed up it felt like nothing was wrong, like nobody had died and there was no war. Then she remembered and the weight of reality came crashing down again.

"Babe?" Marcy prompted, stroking the back of her lover's head gently when Bonnie pressed her face against the vampire's chest and clung to her tightly.

"I can't face them, Marcy. I can't go out there today. What if I've fucked this all up? What if more people die because of me?" she whispered after a moment. Marceline held her as close as possible and laid her cheek against the princess' head to murmur softly to her.

"We're gonna fight. _I'm_ gonna fight, and you know I never back down from a fight. I believe in you, babe. I believe in us. We're gonna win, we're gonna knock some sense into that stupid flame girl and her stupid boyfriend too. This is all such a dumb thing for people to die over. We're gonna fix it, alright? Like adults. I might not always act like it but you and me, we're ancient. We're... better than all this stupid teenage drama, aren't we? We're bigger than it. So if I need to march out there and scold the Flame Queen like I'm her nanny then I will. Yeah?"

Despite herself Bonnie snorted with laughter and let out a long breath. She didn't believe, not quite. But Marceline's brittle optimism was contagious. Neither of them noticed Peppermint Butler slip from the room because they'd already forgotten he'd ever been there. Still, the breakfast tray was arranged with his usual attention to detail; along with Bonnie's pancakes and syrup there was a mug of bright red hibiscus tea and a couple of shiny crimson apples that she handed to a grateful Marceline. They ate in silence for a while, each lost in thought.

"Bon? Did you mean what you said last night?" Marcy asked quietly after a while.

"Which part?"

"All of it."

"That I love you? That I want to rebuild together? Yeah."

"And about us maybe dying today."

Bonnie sighed and looked away.

"That too." she replied softly.

"You don't really believe that." Marceline pushed. "You've been through worse stuff than this and still come out of it smelling like roses, babe. You always find a way."

The princess looked down at her fingernails, unable to meet her lover's eyes. Maybe she had been in more danger before but it had been personal danger, it hadn't been the whole of Ooo being threatened all in one go. And it was easy to see how someone who'd been away from everything for so long might underestimate the Flame Queen. Bonnie herself had made that mistake and she'd already paid dearly for believing there was nobody else who could match the military might of the Candy Kingdom. Marceline was still searching her with her eyes, face expectant and almost optimistic. It wasn't fair to let her go into danger without understanding it as thoroughly as possible.

"I... I don't know. I don't want to believe that we might die today but I'm willing to accept that it's a possibility. I sent for you because I needed you, I needed a champion and a hero. I needed to settle our past. Because if I did die and I went to my grave without telling you how I felt I knew I would walk Ooo forever as a ghost; unfinished business and all that. I wanted to avoid that fate almost as much as I wanted to see you again. I never stopped missing you, Marceline."

"I'm right here now." the vampire comforted her, drifting across the small space between them to tilt her princess' chin and place a soft kiss on her warm lips. There was comfort in simply letting Bonnie rest in the cool circle of her arms, protected and safe for as long as there was strength in Marceline's body. They both jumped at a hammering on the door and Marcy reluctantly went to wrench it open. It was Peppermint Butler again and this time his face was twisted in worry.

"Finn the Human is missing, he's gone to the Flame Queen to turn himself in." the butler announced in a rush.

…

 _I donked everything up and people are dead and it's my fault. I'm going to go make it better, don't cry for me cause I did this all to myself and I'm sorry people got hurt because I was a dick and I should have done this earlier and I'm so sorry. Tell the princess I would have stood by her til the end, tell the vampire she better look after Bubblegum or I'll come back and haunt her. I'm gonna go fix it and then I'll see Jake again and I can apologise properly. I miss you all already. Love you guys._

 _Finn_

No matter how many times her eyes scanned the messy handwriting Bonnie still failed to take in the full meaning of the letter that had been left on Finn's pillow. How could he leave in the night? How could he have gotten past the Fire Army camped outside or the few hardened Banana Guards still holding the barricades? The throne had never felt so uncomfortable as when she was stuck sitting there trying to maintain an orderly court in the ruins of her Great Hall and all she wanted to do was go find Finn, keep him safe. He was her friend, he'd been in her life since he was just a little boy and he'd been injured what if the Flame Queen hurt him again? He was only eighteen, biologically the same age as she was. Was there more she could have done to keep him safe?

Lady and the pups were beside themselves with panic over losing Finn now as well as Jake. The Rainicorn had locked herself in her room crying, attended by her children and to refusing to come out for long enough to talk to her oldest friend. Bonnie wished she had time to comfort her but she needed to figure out what it meant for the rest of the kingdom and try to keep order amongst the few who hadn't slipped away to join the Fire Kingdom during their amnesty period. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the pitifully small handful who remained. There were a lot of the Hotdog citizens; they weren't keen to join the side that had roasted their princess alive. A couple of more sturdy goblins, probably the brighter amongst their kind since the Fire Army had more or less just strolled through Goblin City and taken over without much fuss. There was one surviving wildberry man for what he was worth, ageing and harrowed by the siege that had claimed his own kingdom. And a few candy citizens remained. Starchy, Manfried, Mr Cupcake, elderly Colonel Candycorn and a couple of their friends. And that was it. Of the hundreds of citizens she'd created there were less than ten who'd been loyal enough to stay with their princess when threatened. Bonnie couldn't even find it in herself to be angry about that although Marceline was easily furious enough for the both of them. She hovered by the throne wrapped in an aura of pure rage; she was almost more terrifying than Fire Army camped at their gates.

"Your Highness, what does it mean for the midday deadline?" Peppermint Butler asked quietly from her other side. Bonnie turned to him, shaking her head before she managed to find the words.

"I don't know. Their ultimatum was based on giving Finn up and since he's gone... But it would be foolish to think that this is simply about revenge for whatever he's supposedly done. It's conquest, pure and simple. Didn't the Flame Queen's _emissaries-"_ she spat the word like it was something disgusting "-call her the Empress of New Ooo? This has the old Flame King written all over it. I don't know who's pulling the Flame Queen's strings these days but she's never shown any indication of wanting to take over the known world before now."

"Politics have gotten really political since I left." Marcy murmured distractedly. She shook her head with a frown, running a hand through her hair in agitation. "So what now? Are we just gonna sit here until midday and see what happens?"

Less than twelve hours into their reconciliation and her lover's demanding attitude was already beginning to grate on Bonnie. She pushed down her annoyance since she'd already made a vow to herself to treat Marceline better and tried instead to think of an answer to the brusque question. What were they going to do?

"I wish I'd asked him for more information." Bonnie announced abruptly. "I just assumed that Finn wouldn't lie to me, that he wouldn't leave out anything relevant. And now I think I could have doomed us all with my prejudice against the Fire Kingdom and my unquestioning loyalty to him. I didn't take the Flame Queen seriously as a threat until it was too late. I had too much faith in my own cleverness and superiority. Do you know what hubris is?"

Marceline snorted humourlessly.

"Look it up in the dictionary, babe. I did a cartoon of you next to the definition."

There was a subtle change in the vampire's mood; probably almost invisible to anyone else but Bonnibel had known Marceline too long. She didn't think her heart could have sunk lower but there it went right down to her shoes. Marcy finally saw it, how hopeless their situation was. Perhaps she knew that this was the hill they would die on and that Bonnie in her selfishness and arrogance had pulled her back into the conflict simply so that she wouldn't have to be alone at the end.

"You don't have to stay."

It wasn't much louder than a whisper, certainly not loud enough for Peppermint Butler to hear. But for sensitive undead hearing it may as well have been yelled.

"I know. It's my choice to stay." Marcy replied softly. She drifted closer and let her cool fingertips trail slowly down Bonnie cheek in a wordlessly intimate gesture. They hadn't bothered to hide it, not anymore. Who would care if they were sleeping together when the whole world was about to end?

Bonnie wanted to think about it more, wanted to mediate on the moral code she'd ruled by for eight hundred years and if she'd been wrong to push all visible signs of weakness like love or grief out of the view of her subjects. She wanted to tug Marcy down into her lap and kiss her until they were both breathless, she wanted to scream from the helpless terror that she was so close to losing control over. But there was no more time for any of that. With a boom of approaching drums like thunder from outside the palace walls they heard the Fire Army approach the gates; it was midday.

...

For the first time in months the gates were thrown wide and despite her efforts to keep calm Bonnie's breath caught in her throat. The Fire Army was swollen in size from the last time she'd seen them; she hadn't dared risk a proper examination of their ranks through the daytime and it had been hard to estimate their numbers at night. The endless rows of soldiers were padded with plenty of new recruits, each of them wearing at least one piece of the standard issue black metallic alloy armour that sucked in sunlight and withstood the heat better than almost any other metal known in Ooo. Not that it needed to be heatproof for most of the new troops; they were goblins, slime folk, Rainicorns, candy citizens, bears, even a few hotdog folk who'd joined out of fear. One particularly dense former Banana Guard even waved at her before he caught a sharp elbow in the side from his new commander. Bonnie's eyes narrowed; it was like the whole of Ooo wanted her dead. And then she caught sight of what she'd assumed was a banner they'd been carrying and she lost her sense of reason.

"FINN!"

He was tied spread-eagled in place of a sail on the mast of one of her yachts, the one she'd left moored on the shore of Lake Butterscotch when she'd first heard the Fire Army was marching towards her kingdom. Finn heard her voice and turned his head to search for her but even at that distance she could see his efforts were in vain. Someone had burned his eye sockets until they were nothing more than two blackened holes in his skull; they'd blinded him just like he'd supposedly blinded the Flame Queen. As they approached Bonnie could see it was the old Flame King, the new queen's father, who led the procession carrying Finn like a grotesque mascot.

"Do you want me to describe the scene to you, boy? There's your princess, standing all wide eyed and horror-struck in front of her crumbling palace. Her citizens have all fled, her guards are dead or swelling my ranks. There are only her personal staff and her pet vampire left by her side now. It looks like she's going to cry. Bet you wish you could cry, don't you, you piece of shit? But you need eyes to cry with. You'll wish you could weep by the end of it all, when you have to listen to their screams before I give you the sweet release of death." He snarled it loudly enough at the injured boy that everyone heard him. The drums had stopped and all eyes were on the small group standing in the shadow of the Candy Kingdom gates. Only Marceline's cold hand on her arm stopped Bonnie from rushing forward towards Finn. It was also the only thing keeping her upright, keeping her from vomiting in horror.

"Bon. You can't help him, he made his choice. Let me go to them as your emissary." Marceline whispered urgently into her ear. It was sensible, logical. It still felt like ripping her heart out to watch Finn suffer and be unable to help. But there was nothing else Bonnie could do; she nodded hesitantly though it cost her what little composure she had to agree to it. Marceline floated forwards beneath the shade of her borrowed parasol, out into the empty no-man's-land between the crumbling front wall of the palace and the massed army of conquerors and conquered.

"I speak for Princess Bubblegum. Who speaks for the Fire Kingdom?" she asked in a carrying voice. The words were ancient, the royal protocols that had developed when Ooo was still young after the Mushroom War. They felt wrong coming out of her mouth and Marceline allowed herself a moment to despise the necessity of speaking in any official royal context, but it was for Bonnie. She'd have done anything for the princess, even join a fight she knew she couldn't win. It occurred to Marceline in a distant sort of way that her self-preservation instinct had fled her the moment the velvet of the other woman's lips had pressed against her own.

"I speak for New Ooo." a young, female voice announced formally. "Step down, father. If the princess is too cowardly to speak herself then this won't take long."

A whisper of surprise spread through the mismatched troops as the crowds parted to reveal a flame woman only a little shorter than Finn. She was dressed head to toe in the same black, carved armour as her troops and her head was adorned with an elaborately decorated helmet set with glittering rubies; a battle crown for a conquering empress. That must be Phoebe, the Flame Queen. She strode forward confidently enough although one hand was always raised before her, like she was feeling for something. It was only as she drew close enough to speak to without raising her voice that Marceline noticed her helmet's visor had been filled in and the woman's face was shielded in black metal all the way down to her chin. The Flame King stepped back with a shrug; his grizzly entourage carrying Finn like a tortured banner followed him.

Empress Phoebe of New Ooo stood before her, fiery hand still outstretched and chin tilted upwards with imperious grace. She was curvy, shorter than Marceline by almost a whole foot and her shimmering aura hummed with barely controlled power and heat. The hand she extended raised a little higher, scanning the length of the vampire's body like the flames could somehow trace the angles and lines of her figure. Unexpectedly she nodded and dropped the hand to her side.

"You're the vampire." she announced. It wasn't a question. "You feel... cold. Like a deep shadow."

"Yes. I'm here to talk some sense into you." Marceline agreed with a shrug. She wasn't playing games, she'd run out of patience roughly around the same time she'd found out people had died. "You might have noticed that I'm new here, at least as far as all this is concerned. Why don't you fill me in?"

It was hard to gauge what impact her words had when there was a helmet in the way but Marcy had a feeling she wasn't what the flame girl had expected. There was a silence like she was being assessed and then with a sweep the empress reached up and tugged her helmet all the way up and over her head. It took a lot for Marceline to stay composed, not to suck in the breath of horror that ran through most everyone else watching.

"He did this to me." the Flame Queen told her softly, indicating her face. It was a mess of blackened, dead areas focussed in a splash around her empty eye sockets and ruined nose. There was a diamond shaped indentation in her forehead where Marceline assumed a royal gem had once been set; now it was empty and just as dead as the flaking, charred mess around her face. No flames sprang from the dead areas, just a thin grey smoke that smelled of death and scorched flesh. It was very noticeable that the whole mess was a smeared splash mark.

"Do I even want to know how?" Marceline murmured, trying to keep down the revulsion in her stomach. It looked too much like something had been squirted onto the flame girl's face and she'd tried to wipe it away without knowing that rubbing it would only make it worse. Without knowing anything about it really, without knowing that heating would make it thicker, stickier.

"I... he told me he loved me, and it was something to prove it. And I didn't know, he never told me what would happen at the end. I-" she swallowed hard against what Marceline suspected were the memories of the worst thing that had ever happened to her- "It hurt so much. Does it hurt for everyone when a man finishes like that?"

It hard to keep her voice even when what she'd been worried about in the back of her mind since hearing that the Flame Queen was blinded had been confirmed. A sex act gone wrong, a girl of flame and a stupid, thoughtless boy whose biology produced fluid... and nobody had warned her it would happen, he hadn't told her for whatever reason. Finn was eighteen, there was no way he didn't know what happened to his body when he climaxed.

"He was wrong to do that to you, you know that, don't you? What happened to you was wrong, it was assault. You didn't know it was going to happen so you couldn't consent to it. Can I call you Phoebe? Do you know what consent is?" It took a lot of effort to keep her voice soft but Marceline managed it, just. The girl nodded.

"I didn't know it was going to happen, I didn't say he could do that to me." she agreed.

"Phoebe, listen to me." Marcy started urgently. "I've been there, more than I care to think about. You're not alone in suffering at the hands of an ex-boyfriend. But this, you can't take it out on the whole world. Is this what you want? Everyone dying, the survivors all swept up in this big mono-cultural empire? Those people didn't want this either, they didn't consent to your troops killing them and occupying their land. Once upon a time I had to deal with the same crap from my father. He wanted me to be his puppet, rule the grasslands in his name and... you know what? I decided I'd rather be an individual nobody than have everyone know my name because I was his tool. We have a lot in common, Phoebe. I don't want you to have to go through the same crap I did."

For a second it looked like the flame girl was considering her words. It was hard to tell what she was thinking, her damaged face twisted strangely with her emotions. She nodded finally, and motioned the vampire forward. Marceline approached her cautiously, very aware of the hundreds of eyes on them.

"Tell me something, Vampire Queen. You hate being used by anyone, you want your freedom. That's a noble goal, right? But you don't want to be under anyone's control?" she asked quietly.

"That's right." Marceline agreed hesitantly, wondering what the other woman was getting at.

"Even your girlfriend?"

"Bonnie doesn't control me."

"So you say. Everybody loves her, don't they? She can do anything she wants; lock innocent babies in a prison because they're inconvenient to her, experiment on her own people, watch them with hidden cameras, and nobody cares because she's so pretty and charismatic, she's the perfect little princess. Doesn't that bother you?"

There was no easy way around it; Phoebe was right. Bonnie did bad things sometimes for reasons that were morally dubious. Marceline herself had had plenty of arguments with the princess about her various experiments but at the end of the day she'd come to a weary understanding that Bonnie's moral code was simply different from her own. She acted from what she considered to be the greater good, not out of a sense of personal evil. If she spied on people it was for the safety of the whole kingdom, if she conducted experiments it was because she had an end goal that would benefit everyone. But how to explain the grey shades of Bonnibel's morality to a girl who clearly divided everything into simple Good or Evil?

"I... we understand each other." Marceline finally replied. Phoebe nodded like that was what she'd expected to hear.

"Come here, let me tell you a secret." the flame girl told her softly. Hesitantly Marceline came closer still, bent her head so the Flame Queen could whisper in her ear.

"It bothers me."

She whispered it at the same instant that she plunged the black metal stake hidden in her sleeve straight through the vampire's chest with all of her strength.

There was a moment where time slowed, almost stopped. Marceline tried to reel back in horror, staring down at the length of hot metal like she couldn't understand what had happened. A wicked smile was spreading across the Flame Queen's face and there was an awful screaming from behind her. She turned and discovered that it was Bonnie, screaming her name in horror and barely restrained from rushing to her side by the joint efforts of Starchy and Peppermint Butler hanging off her arms. The Fire Army were sounding their trumpets and a great thunder of feet announced they were beginning their charge forward; Marceline didn't see it though because her eyes were locked onto her lover's anguished face. She reached out towards Bonnie, so much she still had to say, so much she needed to explain-

And crumbled to nothing but ashes an instant later as the overwhelming forces rushed past to seize the palace and take their prisoners.

...

Time can only pass so slowly. That's all that Bonnie could think, staring blankly at the walls of her prison cell. Time will pass if you just keep counting down the seconds; tick them past for long enough and it will be morning and you will finally die. Somehow the thought of it didn't hold the terror that it once had.

At the end of it all things had happened quickly. Every memory of her remaining loyal subjects and their horrific deaths had been overlaid in Bonnie's mind by the image of Marceline reaching out to her and then crumbling away to nothingness with the wicked metal stake sticking out of her chest, right through her silent heart. Was it Peppermint Butler or Starchy who'd pushed in front of her to take a fireball and melted into nothing more than a bubbling puddle of caramel? She wasn't sure, all she saw when she tried to remember was the light dying in moss-green eyes that she'd adored since the moment she'd seen them. Somewhere in some ancient book Bonnie had once read that Hell was repetition. And she closed her eyes and saw Marceline die, terrified, agonised, again and again; she decided they were right. Hells was watching her lover being murdered in her place and to know that it was her fault. If she'd never contacted Marceline then the other woman would be safe in her desert shack, unaware that anything was wrong in the wider world. If she'd never trusted Finn, if she'd just pushed him harder for information, _I wish, if only..._

She had no idea how long it had been since they'd led her away with her hand bound behind her back and shoved her into one of her own dungeon cells. And she hadn't resisted them, hadn't raised a hand against them as the palace fell around her and her own personal world ended. Bonnie felt numb, unreal, like she was trapped in a nightmare.

Maybe the dungeon was unseasonably cold or maybe she was in shock; Bonnie didn't know. But she shivered violently and made no effort to stop. Why should she care anymore? Perhaps it was night, she'd not paid attention but the light of the sun was gone so she supposed the day must have ended outside the narrow bars of the window far too high for her to look out of. Marceline had loved the darkness even more than a vampire needed to, she'd genuinely been happiest and most beautiful when lit by starlight and stirred by the night breeze. Bonnie let herself picture her lover, the curves and lines of her lithe body as she hovered gracefully in the air. If she imagined hard enough perhaps she could reach out and touch-

"Princess."

Bonnie barely registered that anyone was addressing her but after a moment she turned her head to the doorway that had opened when she wasn't looking. There stood Cinnamon Bun, fully-baked now and lucid, rational. He'd made the completely logical decision to throw his lot in with the Fire Kingdom earlier than almost anyone, he must have recognised how rotten and corrupted by her own power Bonnie had become. She couldn't even find it in herself to hate him for it.

"Come to say goodbye?" she asked him wearily. The big man regarded her with pitying eyes before he gestured to the narrow wooden plank that served for a bed where she huddled against the wall.

"May I sit? I want to talk to you." he replied. She shrugged because it made no difference either way so after a moment he sat. There was really only one thing she wanted to know now anyway.

"What happened to Neddy?" Bonnie asked, vaguely surprised at how smooth and even her voice was. It should have been a croak, if she'd managed to shed any tears yet it would have been. But she couldn't cry because if she cried that would make it real.

"Neddy?" Cinnamon Bun prompted with a frown.

"My brother. In the top of the palace, the dragon."

"Oh. We told him to rest, he was no threat. He was asleep, last I heard."

"Nobody hurt him?"

"Why would we? He just wanted to be left alone."

Bonnie nodded, glad that her brother at least had escaped the Flame Queen's wrath.

"Princess, don't you want to know why I'm here?" he pushed after a long moment of silence.

"Not really. I find myself unable to care." Bonnie replied softly.

"You gave me life, and so many others, you were our creator. And yes, we rebelled against you when your rule became tyrannical. There was something rotten at the core of the Candy Kingdom, and now it's clean again. But I can't shake the feeling that I still owe you some affection for bringing me into the world. Even the abused child still craves the love of their mother in a shameful, dark place deep down in their soul. Do you know what they're going to do to you tomorrow?"

She shook her head, weary of the conversation already. They would kill her, in some way or other, and she'd either be reunited with her sweet Marcy or she'd at least cease to feel when the oblivion of death closed around her. Anything would be better than feeling like there was a metal stake through her heart, too.

"There's a huge bonfire being built in the courtyard. I stopped them from adding the contents of your library to the kindling, I can't abide book burning. But you and Finn, Peppermint Butler, the few others they captured, you're going to be burned at the stake tomorrow at first light. It's to be a public execution, a final humiliation of the defeated. I can't abide gratuitous vengeance either. And that's what these executions will be, one last way to shame you before death puts you out of their reach. We took the moral high ground; we're supposed to be noble in our victory, not savage. I can't forgive you all the abuses I've suffered at your hands over the years, Princess. But I can pity you. I can show you the compassion you never showed me. And I won't let them torture you to death in front of a jeering crowd. We're supposed to be civilized."

There was a ringing noise in Bonnie's ears as Cinnamon Bun finished speaking. He was there to lecture her about morality and noble victory, in her own dungeon? It made a sick kind of sense. She laughed and the sound was dire in her ears; strained and humourless.

"So then you're setting me free?" she asked him with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. Maybe she could get hold of Marceline's ashes somehow, find a way to resurrect-

"No, I still believe you must die for what you've done to this world. You have one life and you spent yours playing Grod with your citizens just for amusement. But I believe you have the right to a death of dignity and your own choosing. Here."

He held out a single bright red apple, the kind that Marcy had drained the colour from so often. It looked odd in his hand, out of place. It should have been held in slender grey fingers and lifted to full, cool lips. Nonetheless Bonnie took it and turned it over and over between her numb fingers.

"Poisoned?" she asked, although she hardly cared either way. He nodded.

"It will take you in your sleep, gently. Humanely. Too many people have gone to the fire and the war is over now, there's no need for more violence. I leave the choice up to you; face the crowd tomorrow and die a defeated traitor, or take your life in your sleep on your own terms. Goodbye, Princess."

He stood to leave and the first real feeling that Bonnie had had since she'd seen Marceline crumble suddenly flashed through her. She reached out and took his arm before her could go.

"CB? Thanks."

He stopped and nodded but didn't look around at her.

"You're welcome. Sleep well."

The door of the cell closed behind him. Bonnibel was left alone in the darkness to stare down at the apple in her hands and try to decide if she should wait for a rescue that probably wouldn't come or end it now, on her own terms. She thought of Marceline, of the thousands who'd already died, of her ruined Kingdom, and made her choice.

...

Education was an important pillar of New Ooo culture; comprehensive and inclusive sex education for all children covering all of the differing body types found throughout the empire was one of the first things that had been taught in the newly established public schools. But they focussed on so many other things too, there was literacy and math, geography, science, history. The arts flourished and there was a wealth of new literature produced immediately after the War of Union. Copies of rare older texts were printed and distributed; soon every school child in the land had been forced to read Romeo and Juliette out loud to their awkward teenaged classmates. That wasn't the worst of it though, at least Shakespeare was so far in the distant past that nobody was really debating the details anymore.

"Phoeben, will you read to the class?"

The little candy boy rolled his eyes; he wished people would just call him 'Ben', wished his stupid patriotic mother hadn't felt the need to name him after some dumb old empress just because she'd finally died from old age a week before he was born. He sighed and stood, picking up his text book and clearing his throat.

"The Tragedy of Night and Candy-" he began, ignoring the groans and eye rolls from the rest of the class "-is a popular play based on the lives and deaths of Queen Marceline Abadeer, a vampire, and Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum, the ruler of the conquered Candy Kingdom. It is set in the final days of the War of Union and describes a supposed romantic relationship between the two villains and monarchs. Central to the story is the concept of selfishness and selflessness, acting out of both love and fear, and how their deaths are ultimately a symptom of everything that was wrong with the many kingdoms of Old Ooo."

He read it in a bored monotone, letting his professor know how little he cared for some stupid historical romance play and its stupid anti-heroes. Nevertheless his teacher nodded to him and called on the next boy to read aloud the second paragraph in their text book.

"Many historians dispute the evidence that the two women had anything more than a platonic friendship but the author of the play, Cinnamon Bun the Elder, was firm in his claim of a romantic relationship between them. He had been close friends with the real Princess Bubblegum in his youth before the War of Union and provided many first-hand accounts of their romantic relationship, however many critics at the time discounted these stories as simply propaganda to promote his new play. Despite implicating himself in the mysterious suicide of the deposed monarch no charges were ever brought against Cinnamon Bun and he passed away from old age just four years after the first performance of The Tragedy of Night and Candy. The play remains as divisive as it is popular."

The boy sat back down and looked expectantly to his professor.

"Thank you, Flamar. So today we'll be examining the historical records of these two fascinating women, looking at what was known about their lives and analysing the evidence for and against a romantic relationship. There will be homework," the class groaned at that, "-I want you to produce a short essay defending your position as either platonic or romantic along with all the evidence you have gathered and why you came to that conclusion."

Flamar and Phoeben exchanged weary glances; nobody in their generation really cared whether some long dead queens had been fucking each other or not. But it remained a popular subject of speculation amongst the older generations, especially their grandparents who had mostly fought in the War of Union and who probably found the mystery compelling or something. So with a sigh both boys bent their heads to their books and began reading the arguments for and against, making notes and silently cursing that Bonnibel or Marceline had ever existed. They were part of the old world, a myth. It was hard to imagine in the bright daylight of the public school room that their shades held any fascination for anybody. But all across New Ooo, despite their loyalty to the empire and their beautiful new empress, despite the general belief that the War of Union was necessary, people still held a place in their hearts for those two women who'd watched their world end together. And there was nothing so often quoted as the final line of the play;

" _For never was a love so evergreen_

 _As that of Bonnibel and her Marceline."_


End file.
